Choices
by Aleauxvander
Summary: Holly had been warned by many to stay away from Artemis but never before had someone warned her against staying away. Life is full of choices. But no one ever mentions fear. Pre-Artemis/Holly, but Artemis/Holly nevertheless.


**My brain is broken. I apologize for the utter crap you are about to read and if this warning doesn't turn you off, the story itself will.**

**No really...I am so sorry for what you are about to endure...And its longer than usual which means more crap to suffer through :/**

**Heat+ brother's wedding in 2 weeks+preparation for collage= Crap stories.**

**Yes, it is without a beta's cautious eye which means it should have grammatical errors and such. Yes, I know, I know.**

**Before I forget: I disclaim. Also this can be considered a companion piece to _Premonition_ or even something before _Acceptance_. Doesn't really matter.**

**Enjoy, if that's possible.**

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><p>Summary:Holly had been warned by many to stay away from Artemis but never before had someone warned her against staying away. Life is full of choices. But no one ever mentions fear. ArtemisHolly.

**Title: Choices**

_By: Aleauxvander B.D_

Before Holy met the older elf face to face and she had read the report on her crimes with the same objective eye she did all of her previous cases with the LEP, she had dismissed it as burn out.

Amelia Donahue was once a school teacher in the east districts of downtown Haven where the upper crust metropolitan livers dared not dwell lest they were reminded of the pitfalls of their advanced society. The area was what those in central Haven called rural, merely for being so far away from the CBD that it took a few hours by public commuting to get there.

It was dark and run down with higher crime rates than the regions closest to LEP headquarters, as was expected in the case, but it was odd to see someone so grandmotherly, plump and graying with age and kind eyes in the worst parts of the city. But she had lived and thrived there until the week before the case file appeared in Holly's inbox, she had ended the lives of two people.

The time between then, when Holly had led her team to capture and bring the woman in, and now, where Holly was tied to a chair, above ground, in rural Ireland, was something ironic. They had trusted the kind smile and the soft voice and the cold bloodied killer had simply, under the guise of being ill, taken control of them and fled with their leader.

By then, Holly was unconscious, and it was only now that she gained consciousness like a bulb switching on, a sudden, sharp awareness from a bleak moment of darkness and she found herself staring straight ahead at the bare wooden panels of a cabin.

Her head was lolling piteously forward, stiff and painful from a night of sleeping that way, and her hair hung in her face, hiding the room from her view. Moving was out of the picture; not only did her neck hurt but her whole body felt as if she had been beaten within an inch of her life and she realized with a sense of resignation that it was hours since she had been taken and she was yet to be found.

Trying to stifle the panic growing within her, Holly closed her eyes, breathed deeply and concentrated on releasing a flare of magic to sear through the binds at her wrist but the door pushed open suddenly and the grandmotherly figure came in, stout and plum, carrying tea.

"Best not to try that, love" she suggested to Holly, "those binds around your hand have drained your magic at a timely basis throughout the night. You are utterly dry of it. It's still in your cells of course but not enough to do anything."

Holly's first inclination was to snap at her, to fight her way out and to be angry. The anger came first, boiling over and for a moment she saw red, but bit back her temper to speak as quietly as she could, diplomatically, without raising any suspicion and alarm.

"Why am I here?" she demanded quietly, trying to keep her voice steady and the true extent of her anxiety out of her tone. It would do no good to give the woman the advantage of being calm and collected while Holly's head spun with uncertainties and concern. But Amelia Donahue kept her eyes steady on Holly and if she saw Holly's true fear she said nothing.

Donahue sat before her on the too large chair and cradled the tea in her hands, looking tired and worn, standing on her last legs.

"Tis' for your own good." She insisted vaguely, vaguely. Holly watched her face through the curtain of her hair and for a moment, saw the regret flash across the elder elf's features before it was washed away by a kind smile.

"Do you know I knew your mother?"

The shock must have made itself obvious on her face, but despite curiosity, Holly bared her teeth and snapped back. Donahue smiled at her reaction and Holly bristled in annoyance.

"I don't care." Holly hissed but she did, she suddenly realized. She did care. Any link to her lost mother was one of the many things she craved the most but this woman had a manic look in her eye and some sort of complex. She was deliberately toying with Holly and the last thing she would do was give her the satisfaction of wining.

Despite Holly's sharp dismissal the woman carried on.

"I met her when I was only so high," she motioned with her hand somewhere at her knees, "and she was quiet beautiful. You have her face. Its quiet disconcerting."

Holly pursed her lips in a vow of silence while she tried in vain to loosen the binds on her wrist. The more she moved, the bands chaffed against her skin and her dwindling magic reserves did nothing to alleviate the pain and swelling.

"I always wondered why she became my friend. She was so kind and loving and I had been teased and tortured throughout my childhood simply because I could See."

Holly's head snapped up and she hissed in pain for a moment before whipping her hair out of her face and leveling the woman with her gaze. She could _See_? This woman, this aged figure was a Seer? However possible it was, the lines that were fraught with prophets and clairvoyants had died out years before in the time of Frond. What was left now where the rare cases of those among the People who were particularly sensitive to other's thoughts and intuition.

But this unassuming elf set aside her tea to tuck her graying hair behind her ear and there it was, just below her pointed ear, hidden, was the mark of the Seer, something that hadn't been seen in millennia.

An abstract thought hit Holly, that No°1 would have a field day meeting this magical woman, an anomaly across time and generations, sitting across from Holly drinking tea. A more immediate troubling thought was the woman's plan for her. She could either be killed or used as leverage and quiet frankly, the only person they could use her successfully against was, sadly, Artemis.

The question was why she needed Holly. It suddenly dawned on her that the woman could tell her anything she needed to know about her future; her career, the hunt for Opal, relationships…Artemis.

_Shit_, Artemis. Holly bit back a groan and let her head fall lazily. She had missed the meeting time and place she was supposed to keep with him because of this woman. And knowing him, he would track her down to the ends of the earth and he would find her; he always did. But Holly didn't know the true extent of this woman, what gifts and weapons she had in her arsenal and Holly felt a moment of fear for Artemis' life if he did find her. She could protect her own life in this state, but not his as well. However harmless she seemed she had murdered two of her kind. Holly's stomach turned unpleasantly and she felt more nauseous than she had before.

"Don't worry," Donahue said quietly, "all those who need to be informed will be told your direct coordinates at dawn. And given that the sun rose 2 hours ago, they should be on their way now."

There was a moment of silence in which Holly simply watched her, unsure as to what was happening and what would happen next.

"You're not going to murder me." Holly stated more than asked.

"No, I am not." Donahue answered.

"Then what do you want from me?" Holly asked near angry.

She smiled at Holly, setting aside the tea cup once more to stand and cross the room. A desk Holly hadn't noticed before sat under the lone window and on it was a clay bowl of water. She came over and put it at Holly's feet.

"The question is what you would want from me." She said lifting a hand for silence when Holly opened her mouth to speak, "I am not here to read out the mysteries of your tomorrow but I am here to...well, warn you."

Dread filled Holly suddenly, like a boulder falling into her stomach and her breath stilled in her throat while her pulse hammered away.

"Against what?" she questioned calmly.

Donahue shook her head.

"Against _whom_," she corrected, "I believe that destiny is written for us but can be altered by our decisions. I can only hope you will heed my warning."

"Against …" Holly fished, "against whom?"

The woman held a bare, wrinkled hand over the water and spoke quietly in a dead language of those with Sight, and the water came to life. Holly's reflection disappeared in the swirls and eddies of the moving water and then it settled, like a mirror, showing the visage of a familiarly handsome, aristocratic pale face and sticking mismatched eyes.

Her heart stuttered to a crashing halt and dread rolled through her. Her limbs felt suddenly heavy and she stared at the image.

"A-Artemis?" she looked up at the woman who's eyes were now clear as mist, no pupil, no iris, just pale, misty blue, " you want to warn me against him? What can you say that others haven't?"

Holly had heard everything from everyone. She had been threatened by the Council, bribed by Trouble, begged by friends and co workers. Foaly who seemed to understand how vital her friendship with Artemis was to her sanity hadn't been without fault before then. Even he had been desperate for her to cut ties with the young genius but then Artemis grew up and settled into his smooth skin of confidence which only unnerved the People more and somehow, calmed Holly.

He was dangerous, yes, she knew, she had experience it all with him before, the untapped rage within him, his brilliance, passion that someone so young shouldn't have and a love for those he cared for so staggering that more than once, selfishly, she wished he would…Holly shook her head.

"This," the woman beckoned to the bowl of water with Artemis' image, "is known as _The_ _Tears of the Seers_." She reached within her pockets where she removed a vial and tipped it just below her left eye where one wispy, tender trail of liquid left her eye and collected in the bottle. "We Seers don't live long. The closer we get to the end of out natural life, our _Sight_ dims and our eyes, literally, weep for the loss."

"So you collect it." Holly deduced and the women nodded, "and use it."

"Yes," she answered, "it's an age old tradition. We can no longer _See_ with our eyes, but our gift cannot be wasted. Once we die, this water is useless. But I think it is now the time for you to see Artemis Fowl's true potential."

"He is as dangerous as anyone in the Lower Elements is." Holly said in his defense. "Yes he has done wrong and has great potential to do more wrong but so does everyone else. He can't always live to please us."

The woman waved her hand over the image and it changed, birthing a new image of Artemis, dressed down at the breakfast table she had joined him at months before in his house, with the twins chattering away opposite him. He had a small, fond smile on his face but his eyes were hooded, hiding something from their observant eyes.

For a moment she was certain she saw anger there, or some other strong, pained emotion, but it dawned on her she had seen that same look in her own face before and it wasn't anger. For all Artemis was, all the things he had and all the people he knew, he was lonely.

Holly's heart ached and she turned her eyes to the ceiling, pursing her lips in an effort to stay calm and objective. But she knew how he felt, how loneliness was crippling enough sometimes to weaken you physically, strong enough to make you cautious and sad.

"So young and yet he feels so much." Donahue commented, "Do you know how often he thinks of you?"

Holly's eyes traveled upwards carefully, to stare into the pale abyss of the woman's. An inexplicable fearful chill ran up her spine, and she felt the pull of ambivalence; she wanted to know but she didn't. There was only so much their friendship could handle and despite what the majority of the Lower Elements thought, their relationship was, and would remain, platonic.

Even if, she admitted, it killed her. It was for the best. They both had a duty to the people that shouldn't be compromised by the muddy, murky waters of a romantic relationship.

"Everyday," Amelia said answering her own question, "he tries his best not to. It is distracting for a man of his intellect. He has much to do, theories to test, minds to blow and most importantly, a live separate and apart from _you_ to live but he is _plagued_ by you still."

"I-I—"

"No he isn't your fault." Amelia continued, "It may have been a childish crush initially but you two went to the edge of the darkness and back. He had two choices; to suppress the memories of all his trails with the People and with you, or to love you and accept them. He chose to love you instead."

"Artemis can only love so much." Holly said rationalized, refusing to believe what she said, "His mind isn't cut out for caring. He loves his family and the Butlers because he conditioned himself to. It sounds selfish and fake, but that is what he does and in time he came to love them. Do you think he always loved them? It took him _years_ to trust them and to admit how much he cared for them. He wouldn't just suddenly..." Holly shook her head, "you're wrong. I know him."

"You know him better than I do." The woman said, "When has he ever done things by halves?"

"So what if he does by some off chance love me." Holly said pragmatically, "it was bound to happen eventually. We spend so much time together or communicating, some form of affection was bound to grow out of it. But it is purely _platonic_"

Amelia lifted a disparaging eyebrow and her hands made a steeple under her chin.

"I think you are trivializing this."

"Where is the warning?" Holly asked suddenly, "What he feels now won't necessarily be what he feels years from now."

"Then why would a Seer need to kidnap you to warn you?" Amelia asked. The question washed over Holly and she exhaled sharply. She didn't want it to, but it made sense. Amelia Donahue had no reason to warm her against Artemis if something grave wasn't set ahead in their future, but what did it have to do with what Artemis did or didn't feel for her.

_This is ridiculous_, Holly thought almost hysterically. _Artemis is…_

"He will never, stop loving you." The woman foretold, "Ever. You don't see what I do. Just as his dreams are plagued with you, mine are plagued with him. He writes and records himself, _teaches_ himself not to feel for you what he does, but he cannot; not for long. And if you think his sleeplessness is dangerous now, his future his bleak. Artemis Fowl will never stop loving you because it doesn't occur to him _not_ to. He has hope, something as _unscientific_ and _fickle_ as hope that _you_ taught him to do and because _you_ taught him to do this simple, human act, he will have kept hoping for you until his death." Amelia shook her head and the image wavered in the water as her concentration broke. Another image came up, of Artemis pacing, talking to himself as the red light blinked on the recorder on his desk.

"He has always had hope of you loving him because you feed him this hope. You are important to him and you will continue to be until you break his heart and when you do, he will either be better for it or worst but this is torture. You can't talk to him the way you do, smile at him, be with him and NOT expect him to hope. Reciprocation is _bleeding_ out of your every pore. You don't see it but he does—"

"I don't love him!" Holly yelled, insistent, trying to convince herself more than she was trying to make a point.

"But …you will" Amelia said calmly. "You don't love him now, but you will. And it's important that you deal with it."

Holly's lips parted for a retort, not sure what to say or what to feel. For now, she could only feel the bands against her wrist and around her ankles could only see the images of Artemis before her and could feel—

Nothing. She couldn't feel anything. The numbness was overtaking her.

"I will…" Holly said her voice a horse, doubting whisper. "Doubt it. My job takes me away and keeps me away from him. The Council is determined to destroy my career and it is only because of my rank that I am able to see him at all."

Amelia said nothing, but reached forward and touched her index finger to the surface of the water.

The next image startled Holly enough to pain her.

The backdrop was deep, angry skies, smoke clouded streets, fires and explosions. A massacre in motion. The Lower Elements lay to waste.

_Bodies strewn about._

_Mud man drills and tanks invading their homes and Artemis stood with a face void of colour and emotion watching this expedition, uncaring, unflinchingly._

_Burning. So much fire and fumes, and prisoners of war, taken to be dissected by science_ and Holly looked away, tears burning her eyes as horror and grief struck her dead in the chest. She suddenly couldn't breath and forced a lung full of air into her body.

The images changed and before a sickening sob could wrench its way out of her, she saw herself asleep amongst white sheets and blue linen, curled up under layers, and she saw Artemis step into the fray, looking down at her curiously before stooping by the bed and kissing her awake.

Holly stared, felt an unfamiliar feeling well up inside her and watched.

"_Wake up."_ Artemis said softly.

That Holly smiled sleepily and batted at his young face.

"_Mm'a wake." _

He kissed her again, deeply, and she pulled him down unto the bed beside her, before a small child, with dark hair and blue eyes, came into the room, climbing into her parent's bed with much fanfare and borrowed her way in between them.

"_Ariciah that's not polite."_ Artemis said.

The cheeky, dimpled child smiled.

"_Bad parental example_." She chastised and Holly couldn't help but letting out a watery laugh as that Holly shoved a pillow in the child's face to shut her up. The sound of childish laughter rang out and the child shied away from her father's wandering, tickling fingers.

"Beautiful, no?" Amelia asked, and then the water faded to nothingness until it was transparent again and all Holly saw was the bottom of the clay bowl and her reflection. "I have those two dreams in quick succession. One is never without the other."

The distinct sound of a low lying stealth jet alerted them of the LEP's sudden arrival and the small cabin shook as two more soared close enough to shake the rafters.

"They're here." Amelia said without needing to. Then her suddenly clear eyes settled on Holly again. "I believe that destiny makes us each a kindred spirit to guide us through our lives. In some cases, this kindred spirit may be a truly pure soul, in others, a troubled, brilliant mind. Your mother was mine." She said with a fond smile, "and Artemis, is yours. Destiny has tied you together but it has not dictated for you to love each other. That happened as a consequence."

15 lasers were suddenly centered on Amelia, right in the centre of her chest and Holly wanted to scream to them, to caution them, to tell them to wait but time would be wasted. She could hear the footsteps of the LEP teams coming closer to the cabin. They were out of time.

"So what do your dreams mean then?" Holly asked, confused.

Amelia shrugged and stood wearily, turning her back to Holly as she picked up her teacup.

"Destiny goes two ways. For the better or for the worse and you have a key role in each. You only can decide his future and the future of our People." She explained, "I am not telling you to love him, to force yourself to feel something you don't—"

"It sounds like you are. I have no choice, but for the sake of our people—"

"But I'm not." She said slowly, and turned to look at Holly. "No one can make you love him. But if you don't, and you don't ever believe you will, tell him. Good or bad, he will recover but don't let him hope and wait in vain. The world cannot survive it."

She couldn't see them, but felt the shift in the air as the door eased open eerily and she watched Amelia close her eyes in preparation for the tranquilizer the LEP operative shielded behind her used.

She suddenly collapsed and Holly cried out for her, just as the door flew open and LEP operatives came streaming in, one after the other, securing them room.

A medic stooped by Amelia and began checking her over and before she could ask if the woman was alright, her hands were being untied.

And then…he was there. The last person she expected to see, Artemis, dressed in a dark suit, his hair windswept and his eyes concerned, flew threw the door and was on his knees before her, griping her to his chest in a tight, desperate hug.

Against her better will she felt her heart leap in her chest, remembered what she saw, remembered the way he had kissed her in the image and how she had melted into him with a completely rapturous look on her face, how he had held their daughter, how he had smiled at them and when she felt her arms fall loose, she tried to hug him but the medic behind her suggested otherwise.

"Until circulation in your hand recovers," he insisted, "I am going to start at the relative angle you had your hands and little by little ease it down until circulation is back, alright?"

Artemis, however, didn't let go, simply held her, one hand around her shoulders, the other buried in her hair and she could feel his heart hammering against her chest. His soft, steady breaths heated her neck where his face was buried and she felt a sudden awareness of him, one she had always felt but never this intensely before.

He was warm and solid and he smelled like his expensive aftershave and something distinctly Artemis; a heady, male scent that made her head swim and she sunk forward into his arms when her feet were untied.

"You're alright." He breathed.

"I'm alright." She assured him quietly. His fingers still carded through her hair, against her scalp and the soothing gesture had her limp in his arms.

"Mr. Fowl, we need to examine her before we bring her outside. We're going to have to ask you to wait outside with the Commander until then."

Artemis pulled back and away, balancing on his haunches as he unwound his hands from her person but Holly's hands shot out, as if by reflex and curled around his wrists.

"No." she said sternly. "He stays with me."

He looked shocked by her request and Holly nearly laughed at the absurdity of it all. The only person who saw her at her best and worst, the only person besides Foaly she spoke to everyday, and he looked _shocked_, looked indescribably pleased that she wanted him to stay with her?

Indiscernibly, his face lit up, but he kept it behind a cool mask of relief, which was expected o f him.

"Very well," he said with a nod, and stood before stepping out of the medic's way to lean against the desk.

While they began the check ups, she stretched out her left hand for him.

"Give me your hand." She instructed.

Knowing what she did, she could easily see doubt rising in his eyes for a moment before a sort of childish glee and nervousness.

"Why?" he asked, but never the less, let her small hand slip into his and held it.

"I need to be reassured that you're here and alive."

Artemis let out a bark of laughter which caught the attention of a few workers in the room but it sounded strained as if he hadn't really recovered from the knowledge that she had disappeared en route to Police Plaza.

"Me?" he said with incredulity, "I wasn't kidnapped by my own prisoner and bound to a chair. Lord knows what she's done to you."

He didn't seem to realize he was doing it but his thumb traced soft, shapes across her fingers and down her wrist.

The medic working on her, however, saw it and raised a solitary purple eyebrow at it. Holly leveled him with her gaze and he continued his work.

"We just talked." She said vaguely and when he gave her the 'go on' look, she shrugged, much to the annoyance of the medic who was trying in vain to keep her still, "Just talked, about the future."

"A murderer kidnaps you and holds you hostage… to talk about the future." He says dryly, obviously not believing a word she said.

He rolled his eyes and was once more stooping by her side but he released her hand to tie the shoelaces on the mud men trainers Amelia- she hadn't moved since she fell down and was taken out of the room- had given her.

"Leave it to your People to find such a mundane criminal." He mocked, taking her hands and helping her to her feet when the medic gave her a good enough bill of health. "Come along. You're Commander is waiting outside and he is convinced that this is somehow my fault or my doing."

Which it is, to an extent, Holly thought as he lead her slowly, on shaky legs she tried to hide from those around her, out of the cabin into the dreary morning light of Ireland. She paused for a moment in her stride and which brought him up short as well. He sent a puzzled look down at her at the thoughtful look on her face.

"What's the matter?" he asked, concern furrowing his brows.

"What do you think of the name Ariciah?"

He suddenly looked paler than usually and diverted his eyes, staring straight ahead to where Foaly and Kelp waited.

"I recall asking you that a few months ago. You said it was you're mother's middle name and the subsequent nickname was Ares."

She still looked at him, waiting. "And?"

He smiled, "It's a beautiful name. I already told you this."

"_He had two choices; to wipe the memories of all his trails with the People and with you, or to love you and accept them. He chose to love you instead"_

Holly remembered then what Amelia had told her inside and maybe she had already made up her mind, maybe destiny, if she even believed in that, had chosen for her already, but she kept her hand steady on his as he guided her towards their companions. She had decisions to make and, come to think of it, she made the choice everyday when she spoke to him, every time she saw him, and each time he smiled her.

"Yeah," she said softly, thinking of a dark haired child with deep dimples and her father's eyes, "It is a beautiful name."

_People always say, _

_Life is full of choices,_

_No one ever mentions_

_Fear._

_.:Owari:._

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